1 00:00:10,200 --> 00:00:15,880 Today I am joined by Ben Pyle, founder of the Climate Debate UK 2 00:00:15,880 --> 00:00:19,080 and also cabinet member on Together Association. 3 00:00:19,640 --> 00:00:23,960 And well, you are a climate researcher, let's say, and have 4 00:00:24,120 --> 00:00:28,360 recently published a paper called Clean Air, Dirty Money 5 00:00:28,360 --> 00:00:31,480 and Filthy Politics. Welcome to the programme, Ben. 6 00:00:32,159 --> 00:00:33,520 Thanks very much, Mike. It's great to be here. 7 00:00:33,720 --> 00:00:36,040 Let's get started. I mean the the title of the of 8 00:00:36,040 --> 00:00:40,400 the paper is pretty clear because dirty money and filthy 9 00:00:40,400 --> 00:00:42,920 politics seems to be the situation that we're in at the 10 00:00:42,920 --> 00:00:44,760 moment. And and what struck me about the 11 00:00:44,760 --> 00:00:48,400 paper as I read it was you're you're talking about so many of 12 00:00:48,400 --> 00:00:51,760 the the things that that we have been covering over many, many 13 00:00:51,760 --> 00:00:57,200 years, C40 cities and so on. The whole city's agenda and the 14 00:00:57,200 --> 00:00:59,960 fact that cities are are absolutely leading the way in 15 00:00:59,960 --> 00:01:04,879 terms of pursuing climate, the climate agenda, the debt zero 16 00:01:04,879 --> 00:01:08,680 agenda, and they're using increasingly clean air as the 17 00:01:08,680 --> 00:01:10,920 mechanism to sort of drive that in the first place. 18 00:01:11,320 --> 00:01:13,440 That's right. Yeah, we look at that, we think 19 00:01:13,440 --> 00:01:17,720 of that as like kind of a pretty much a symptom of the failure of 20 00:01:17,720 --> 00:01:23,480 the green agenda so far in fact. So we we produced another report 21 00:01:23,560 --> 00:01:26,840 earlier on in the year looking at the science of air pollution 22 00:01:26,840 --> 00:01:32,600 claims such as Sadiq Khan's claim that 4000 people die from 23 00:01:32,600 --> 00:01:36,800 air pollution in in London each year which is just nonsense and 24 00:01:36,840 --> 00:01:41,480 and actually you can find scientists being very frank 25 00:01:41,480 --> 00:01:45,040 about the fact that this is nonsense and and even you know 26 00:01:45,280 --> 00:01:47,240 through through sort of committees that the government 27 00:01:47,240 --> 00:01:50,600 have convened and actually the chair of that committee is is 28 00:01:50,600 --> 00:01:54,640 also the chair of Imperial College the the the the the body 29 00:01:54,640 --> 00:01:59,520 at the Imperial College London that sort of now services Sadiq 30 00:01:59,520 --> 00:02:02,800 Khan's claims with science so-called. 31 00:02:02,800 --> 00:02:05,760 But it's it's not peer reviewed science and it's not it's not 32 00:02:05,760 --> 00:02:08,520 scientific even it's just statistical modelling. 33 00:02:08,840 --> 00:02:11,400 But anyway, the point is what? Why? 34 00:02:11,720 --> 00:02:16,480 What we wanted to know really was well, why does this persist? 35 00:02:16,480 --> 00:02:20,120 Why do these kind of claims persist throughout public life 36 00:02:20,120 --> 00:02:21,760 through through politics? Why? 37 00:02:21,760 --> 00:02:23,000 Why? Why politics? 38 00:02:23,000 --> 00:02:29,640 So sort of reluctant to accept that you know challenges to this 39 00:02:29,640 --> 00:02:35,480 view and sort of listen to to the critics of of of those 40 00:02:35,480 --> 00:02:39,160 claims. And I I think pretty I mean you 41 00:02:39,160 --> 00:02:42,040 know I I don't know if this report's going to tell anyone 42 00:02:42,040 --> 00:02:44,640 who watch you know watches this kind of show anything they 43 00:02:44,640 --> 00:02:47,640 didn't necessarily already know. But we did think it was 44 00:02:47,640 --> 00:02:52,000 important to sort of make it in a formal to to create a very 45 00:02:52,000 --> 00:02:56,360 sort of formal argument about how this new form of politics 46 00:02:56,360 --> 00:02:59,880 works, what the kind of structures are and and and who 47 00:02:59,880 --> 00:03:02,400 what's dominant in it. Because it's clearly not 48 00:03:02,400 --> 00:03:04,840 democratic, right. You know, it's clearly not the 49 00:03:04,840 --> 00:03:09,120 case that people are or ever were marching in the street 50 00:03:09,120 --> 00:03:13,440 demanding tighter air pollution controls and demanding that the 51 00:03:13,440 --> 00:03:17,360 government takes away their cars and and and restricts their 52 00:03:17,360 --> 00:03:20,040 access to roads. So. 53 00:03:20,040 --> 00:03:21,960 So where where does it come from? 54 00:03:22,320 --> 00:03:25,880 And you know, we discover, well, we didn't discover, we we 55 00:03:25,880 --> 00:03:29,080 already knew. But we we, we, we show that the 56 00:03:29,440 --> 00:03:34,560 philanthropists have this undue role, this outsized role in 57 00:03:34,560 --> 00:03:39,040 global politics and pretty much in the case of some very big 58 00:03:39,040 --> 00:03:42,520 players like Bill Gates of course, and Mike Bloomberg, 59 00:03:42,880 --> 00:03:45,840 arguably they've just bought their way in now. 60 00:03:45,840 --> 00:03:50,280 It's fine in a sense, I think, to to argue that civil society 61 00:03:50,280 --> 00:03:54,280 organisations and to a greater or lesser or extent sort of some 62 00:03:54,280 --> 00:03:59,600 intergovernmental agencies might require philanthropy to to to 63 00:03:59,600 --> 00:04:02,760 survive, especially in the case of charities. 64 00:04:03,080 --> 00:04:08,200 But we point out that it's more the case that billionaires are 65 00:04:08,200 --> 00:04:12,560 able to buy civil society, not just civil society 66 00:04:12,560 --> 00:04:16,240 organisations. What we're doing here now is 67 00:04:16,240 --> 00:04:19,680 civil society but but we're we're against. 68 00:04:21,399 --> 00:04:25,440 We're against the dominant part of civil society which doesn't 69 00:04:25,440 --> 00:04:27,560 have any real connection with the public. 70 00:04:27,840 --> 00:04:31,840 It's all, it's all top down. It's all from these very lofty 71 00:04:31,840 --> 00:04:35,320 philanthropic organisations that just sort of set things up. 72 00:04:36,360 --> 00:04:39,680 They can just, you know conjure up organisations to suit their 73 00:04:39,680 --> 00:04:45,000 needs as they arise. And so that's that's kind of a 74 00:04:45,000 --> 00:04:49,120 departure from how we might have once understood politics. 75 00:04:50,240 --> 00:04:55,200 Democratic politics in this country is mostly organised 76 00:04:55,280 --> 00:05:01,080 around a contest of ideas between broadly competing 77 00:05:02,600 --> 00:05:06,160 parties representing different interests in society. 78 00:05:06,320 --> 00:05:09,040 Let's look at this in a little bit more detail because you've 79 00:05:09,040 --> 00:05:11,360 talked about philanthropists and you've talked about civil 80 00:05:11,360 --> 00:05:15,680 society organisations, which we might call charities. 81 00:05:15,840 --> 00:05:22,240 NGOs are another aspect of this but and then on top of that as 82 00:05:22,240 --> 00:05:28,200 well there are for example C40 Cities UK 100, a whole bunch of 83 00:05:28,200 --> 00:05:31,320 other it's a global Parliament of Mayors a whole bunch of other 84 00:05:31,560 --> 00:05:35,200 organizations and institutions which have been established and 85 00:05:35,200 --> 00:05:38,080 have really gained a lot of traction in the last 20 or 30 86 00:05:38,080 --> 00:05:42,440 years which are completely outside the what people would 87 00:05:42,440 --> 00:05:45,000 perceive as being the normal democratic process. 88 00:05:45,640 --> 00:05:48,000 The majority of people probably don't even know they exist. 89 00:05:48,000 --> 00:05:52,280 I mean if we took a straw poll of of people in the UK and said 90 00:05:52,280 --> 00:05:54,640 you know have you heard of the global parliament of Mayors. 91 00:05:55,400 --> 00:05:58,280 Very very few people will have heard of that or know anything 92 00:05:58,280 --> 00:06:00,840 about it. And so this is all going on in 93 00:06:00,840 --> 00:06:06,640 plain sight and and us as as as the electorate, as as people 94 00:06:06,640 --> 00:06:11,160 that think we live in a democracy have played no part in 95 00:06:11,160 --> 00:06:13,960 the establishment of these organisations and played no part 96 00:06:13,960 --> 00:06:16,880 in in holding them to account. So. 97 00:06:16,880 --> 00:06:20,320 So how has this happened and how has this crept up on us and what 98 00:06:20,320 --> 00:06:24,640 do you think the steps are that we need to take to to to deal 99 00:06:24,640 --> 00:06:26,600 with it? Well, I think there are a number 100 00:06:26,600 --> 00:06:32,680 of hypothesis about the genesis of this kind of what would you 101 00:06:32,680 --> 00:06:35,960 call it, philanthropic industrial complex. 102 00:06:35,960 --> 00:06:41,680 You know, and I think Vivek Ramaswamy's book, I think it's 103 00:06:41,680 --> 00:06:45,000 called Woke Inc, does shed some light on that. 104 00:06:45,080 --> 00:06:52,760 Perhaps being a system that kind of developed under Obama whereby 105 00:06:52,760 --> 00:06:57,400 there was, I believe tax breaks or some such thing for 106 00:06:57,560 --> 00:07:00,040 philanthropic gestures. And. 107 00:07:00,080 --> 00:07:05,160 And that pushed a lot of money into causes that were, you know, 108 00:07:05,160 --> 00:07:09,520 more or less aligned with the Democratic Party's sort of 109 00:07:09,520 --> 00:07:12,680 consensus or ideological priorities, what have you. 110 00:07:13,120 --> 00:07:15,640 So I think, I think that was probably the shot in the arm 111 00:07:15,640 --> 00:07:18,920 over the last sort of one of the Obama era and since. 112 00:07:19,520 --> 00:07:23,000 But this is a this is a longer thing and and and you know 113 00:07:23,080 --> 00:07:26,920 people what would you say veterans of the climate wars I 114 00:07:26,920 --> 00:07:30,160 suppose you would say have known that this has been going on 115 00:07:30,160 --> 00:07:35,800 since the 19 sort of 60s that very powerful people very rich 116 00:07:35,800 --> 00:07:40,120 people have variously or you know, not not all of them by any 117 00:07:40,120 --> 00:07:44,360 stretch of the imagination but a nucleus of them certainly began 118 00:07:44,360 --> 00:07:51,000 to sort of believe in the 1960s in this Malthusian principle and 119 00:07:51,000 --> 00:07:56,400 and and to try and reinvent the work of Thomas Malthus that that 120 00:07:56,440 --> 00:08:00,480 was sort of aimed to restrict the human fertility. 121 00:08:01,200 --> 00:08:04,720 They spent billions on trying to reduce population in in the 122 00:08:04,720 --> 00:08:07,840 developing world. So they're kind of gripped by 123 00:08:07,840 --> 00:08:10,720 this idea and they were very they were able to set themselves 124 00:08:10,720 --> 00:08:15,720 up through the United Nations through the you know this this 125 00:08:16,760 --> 00:08:21,080 was an oil tycoon, Maurice Strong and that really 126 00:08:21,080 --> 00:08:27,280 established environmentalism in the UN and and and that the 127 00:08:27,320 --> 00:08:31,240 United Nations Environment Programme very much led by 128 00:08:32,520 --> 00:08:36,000 Strong and and his you know fellow philanthropists. 129 00:08:36,000 --> 00:08:40,159 These billionaires like the Rockefellers and and it's kind 130 00:08:40,159 --> 00:08:44,800 of snowballed since then and I I think it's it's very global 131 00:08:44,800 --> 00:08:50,480 politics is very attractive to national politics so so you know 132 00:08:52,440 --> 00:08:57,560 someone like we are our favorite demon Tony Blair he he's much 133 00:08:57,560 --> 00:09:02,480 more drawn to the glamour and the and what have you of of a 134 00:09:02,480 --> 00:09:06,920 global institution of these enormous sort of political 135 00:09:06,920 --> 00:09:10,240 structures rather than just the sort of slightly boring 136 00:09:10,240 --> 00:09:14,560 day-to-day stuff that characterises domestic UK 137 00:09:14,560 --> 00:09:16,640 politics. So you know, so there's been 138 00:09:16,640 --> 00:09:21,760 attempt to rebuild to to to sort of build political institutions 139 00:09:21,760 --> 00:09:25,240 at the global level going on since the foundations of the 140 00:09:25,240 --> 00:09:27,600 United Nations here. It's the first days or even 141 00:09:27,600 --> 00:09:30,800 before if you take the League of Nations as representative of the 142 00:09:30,800 --> 00:09:34,000 same same effort. It's always been a dream of of 143 00:09:34,080 --> 00:09:39,800 of global government for for good and bad reasons and and 144 00:09:39,800 --> 00:09:45,200 that that a lot of people have invested their philanthropy in 145 00:09:45,200 --> 00:09:50,160 it and their and their hopes for for a different form of politics 146 00:09:52,000 --> 00:09:54,640 the the one we're we're sort of used to. 147 00:09:54,640 --> 00:10:01,440 So I think these these kind of things coincide and or align and 148 00:10:01,440 --> 00:10:07,280 so so the, you know, the United Nations cannot be a can't be 149 00:10:07,280 --> 00:10:10,520 dominated by a form of politics for example, that characterises 150 00:10:10,520 --> 00:10:13,920 the ideologies of the early early 20th century. 151 00:10:14,280 --> 00:10:19,720 You know, if it's left wing or right wing as such then then 152 00:10:19,760 --> 00:10:22,240 then there's going, you know, the the, the, the, the, the 153 00:10:22,240 --> 00:10:25,760 political project is not going to be able to sustain itself 154 00:10:25,760 --> 00:10:29,600 because it will obviously rub against democratic principles 155 00:10:29,600 --> 00:10:33,880 where people choose that, what kind of ideologies that their 156 00:10:33,880 --> 00:10:38,040 governments or what the organising principles of the 157 00:10:38,040 --> 00:10:43,240 governments are. So the United Nations has to 158 00:10:43,240 --> 00:10:49,520 sort of it sort of present itself as above ideology and and 159 00:10:49,520 --> 00:10:52,800 people for some reason have have sort of come to believe that 160 00:10:52,800 --> 00:10:55,320 environmentalism isn't ideological. 161 00:10:55,320 --> 00:10:59,320 That this idea about how society must be organised in order to 162 00:10:59,320 --> 00:11:03,840 save the planet is just a technical matter, not a matter 163 00:11:03,840 --> 00:11:08,440 of of you know of of ideologies such as those that characterize 164 00:11:08,440 --> 00:11:10,680 that you know the the early 20th century. 165 00:11:11,000 --> 00:11:14,000 But it is right. It is just as ideological 166 00:11:14,000 --> 00:11:17,720 because it says we must be organised in this way. 167 00:11:17,720 --> 00:11:21,400 The whole of society, the whole of the economy must be radically 168 00:11:21,400 --> 00:11:25,880 reorganised in short order. And then of course it just so 169 00:11:25,880 --> 00:11:30,120 happens that the people who benefit from that are global 170 00:11:30,120 --> 00:11:34,800 technocrats are billionaires and and and you know that's how they 171 00:11:34,800 --> 00:11:39,640 can their their interests are going to be served in in this in 172 00:11:39,640 --> 00:11:42,680 this sort of green utopia that they designed for us. 173 00:11:42,680 --> 00:11:43,720 None of them. They're not going to you know 174 00:11:43,720 --> 00:11:46,520 they're not going to they're not going to be losers in this this 175 00:11:48,960 --> 00:11:53,560 in in the green utopia. So I I mean there's so those are 176 00:11:53,600 --> 00:11:57,240 the two main strands is you know this development of the United 177 00:11:57,240 --> 00:12:03,560 Nations and the development of philanthropy as a sort of a 178 00:12:05,640 --> 00:12:09,680 political force in and of its own right, probably probably the 179 00:12:09,680 --> 00:12:12,000 more recent part of that. Yes. 180 00:12:12,240 --> 00:12:16,080 And I mean, you know, an example of what you're talking about is 181 00:12:16,840 --> 00:12:20,320 Mr. Starmer himself, when he was asked whether he prefers 182 00:12:20,320 --> 00:12:23,880 Parliament or the World Economic Forum and the answer was the 183 00:12:23,920 --> 00:12:26,560 World Economic Forum, that was sort of my next question. 184 00:12:26,560 --> 00:12:30,560 I mean, you know, we've talked about NGOCSOS, we've talked 185 00:12:30,560 --> 00:12:34,880 about bodies like C40 cities and and Global Parliament of Mayors 186 00:12:34,880 --> 00:12:38,200 and so on. But where do you see bodies like 187 00:12:38,200 --> 00:12:41,560 the World Economic Forum or the Bilderberg Group or the CFR? 188 00:12:41,560 --> 00:12:45,040 These types of organisations fitting into all this, are they 189 00:12:45,040 --> 00:12:48,280 just part of the puzzle or or do they have a bigger role? 190 00:12:48,560 --> 00:12:51,560 Or in fact, following on from that, do you think the role of 191 00:12:51,560 --> 00:12:53,440 the World Economic Forum is overstated? 192 00:12:53,800 --> 00:12:55,680 I do and that tends to annoy people. 193 00:12:55,680 --> 00:12:58,440 But I don't. I I don't, I don't want to think 194 00:12:58,440 --> 00:13:01,840 of it as a as a sort of yes, no true false kind of kind of 195 00:13:01,840 --> 00:13:04,720 thing. There are there are dozens of or 196 00:13:04,720 --> 00:13:08,320 at least a dozen organisations like the WEF and the the 197 00:13:08,320 --> 00:13:13,880 Bloomberg Bilderberg and and I think they've got an interest in 198 00:13:13,880 --> 00:13:19,880 overstating their ability to influence things and and so you 199 00:13:19,880 --> 00:13:21,680 know when I was writing the report on air pollution for 200 00:13:21,680 --> 00:13:25,240 example it doesn't really come up in the machinations like and 201 00:13:25,240 --> 00:13:28,560 of course you know there are there are WEF meetings and what 202 00:13:28,560 --> 00:13:32,160 have you about air pollution and and climate change but I don't. 203 00:13:32,160 --> 00:13:34,960 I don't I don't necessarily see them as the instigators. 204 00:13:35,120 --> 00:13:38,440 So I, I, I, I don't want to give them too much credit for what 205 00:13:38,440 --> 00:13:40,080 they don't. They don't. 206 00:13:40,120 --> 00:13:41,720 They haven't. They don't necessarily deserve 207 00:13:41,720 --> 00:13:48,160 and haven't necessarily created. The way I look at them is more 208 00:13:48,160 --> 00:13:53,880 like unsupervised sixth form discos preceding an outbreak of 209 00:13:53,880 --> 00:13:58,120 chlamydia. If you can compare ideology to 210 00:13:58,160 --> 00:14:01,120 an STD. All these people they just move 211 00:14:01,120 --> 00:14:05,240 around in these kind of conferences and and and meetings 212 00:14:05,240 --> 00:14:09,800 and boondoggles and Beanos and what have you and and it rubs 213 00:14:09,800 --> 00:14:12,320 off on each other. They, they, they, they align 214 00:14:12,320 --> 00:14:17,440 through this kind of quite bland, insidious process that 215 00:14:17,440 --> 00:14:19,520 doesn't take away the evil of it. 216 00:14:20,120 --> 00:14:23,680 Like this is not how where decisions and ideologies should 217 00:14:23,680 --> 00:14:28,800 be made like that like the democratic well decision making 218 00:14:28,800 --> 00:14:31,680 should be democratic. It should be we should be able 219 00:14:31,680 --> 00:14:35,640 to participate in that And of course these exclusive clubs are 220 00:14:35,960 --> 00:14:38,480 are exactly that. They're going to say no public 221 00:14:38,480 --> 00:14:46,280 allowed no no people allowed. So so to to to bring that back 222 00:14:46,280 --> 00:14:52,000 to the report it it seems to me that that you know with with 223 00:14:52,000 --> 00:14:59,080 figures like Bill Gates pushing sums like $4.7 billion into 224 00:14:59,080 --> 00:15:03,800 organisations like the World Health Organization funding UK 225 00:15:03,800 --> 00:15:08,640 universities to the tune of 300 plus $1,000,000 each. 226 00:15:08,640 --> 00:15:11,280 That's not a year that's that's in total. 227 00:15:11,280 --> 00:15:15,040 But you know they're giving they're giving vast budgets to 228 00:15:16,400 --> 00:15:20,360 research in in the UK and and and throughout the world and 229 00:15:20,360 --> 00:15:24,360 they're dominating civil society just these you know just the few 230 00:15:24,360 --> 00:15:27,160 the handful of billionaires that we look at Bill Gates. 231 00:15:27,160 --> 00:15:32,600 Mike Bloomberg Christopher Hohn Jeremy Grantham you you know the 232 00:15:33,640 --> 00:15:36,360 the the WEF that I mean those those are sums that are far 233 00:15:36,360 --> 00:15:40,040 bigger than the WEF and they they encompass much more of 234 00:15:40,040 --> 00:15:44,920 society than you know just Davos Mann who who used to be by the 235 00:15:44,920 --> 00:15:46,720 way I mean he's just an object of ridicule. 236 00:15:46,720 --> 00:15:51,400 In the 2000 tens Davos man was quite this quite naff figure who 237 00:15:51,400 --> 00:15:56,400 who you know sort of burdened by the latest gadgets gizmos and 238 00:15:56,400 --> 00:15:59,800 fashionable you know fashionable causes. 239 00:15:59,800 --> 00:16:04,800 He wasn't a serious person. He sort of he he he he he you 240 00:16:04,800 --> 00:16:08,880 know it's a bit of a bit of a spiv really and not not not 241 00:16:08,880 --> 00:16:14,400 someone who is capable of executing you know world plan. 242 00:16:14,840 --> 00:16:19,840 And and I think we should actually perhaps even look at 243 00:16:19,840 --> 00:16:23,120 the these billionaires in the same way and it's not 244 00:16:23,120 --> 00:16:28,240 necessarily the case that you know like the the guy in The 245 00:16:28,240 --> 00:16:31,080 Simpsons, the evil the evil power station guy. 246 00:16:31,080 --> 00:16:33,720 They've got this this program. Yeah. 247 00:16:33,720 --> 00:16:34,240 That's right. Yeah. 248 00:16:34,680 --> 00:16:38,840 So so like kind of it's almost a civil society has been 249 00:16:38,880 --> 00:16:43,720 established to just completely flatter the egos of these 250 00:16:43,720 --> 00:16:48,120 already very narcissistic and psychopathic people. 251 00:16:48,600 --> 00:16:51,880 So so they they may themselves be victims of ideology. 252 00:16:51,880 --> 00:16:55,680 It's not necessarily like scripts and plans and you know 253 00:16:56,720 --> 00:17:01,200 and what and what have you it's the the if you like the 254 00:17:01,200 --> 00:17:05,480 abomination is just in the configuration of politics in 255 00:17:05,480 --> 00:17:11,040 this way not necessarily the the documents that that that reveal 256 00:17:11,599 --> 00:17:16,079 what their agenda is And I appreciate that's nuanced and 257 00:17:16,200 --> 00:17:19,280 and some people might say well what difference does that make 258 00:17:19,280 --> 00:17:22,520 to me you know but but but that I mean but that but that 259 00:17:22,520 --> 00:17:25,680 certainly works both ways I don't I don't think that that 260 00:17:25,680 --> 00:17:31,800 that billionaires should be able to give gifts with strings to 261 00:17:31,800 --> 00:17:36,960 intergovernmental agencies and civil society organizations with 262 00:17:36,960 --> 00:17:39,720 such influence in in in public life. 263 00:17:40,880 --> 00:17:44,640 So I don't I don't need the WEF or the Bilderbergs or to to 264 00:17:44,640 --> 00:17:49,280 explain that position. I just need to say I don't I 265 00:17:49,280 --> 00:17:52,320 don't want this I don't like their ideas I think they're 266 00:17:52,320 --> 00:17:54,720 wrong. I think they distort science 267 00:17:55,120 --> 00:17:59,560 research across the board. They distort not just not just 268 00:17:59,560 --> 00:18:04,360 scientific research, they excuse me, they distort social and 269 00:18:04,360 --> 00:18:05,840 Economic Research and and all kinds. 270 00:18:05,840 --> 00:18:09,280 You know they form cabals and that's one of the things we 271 00:18:09,400 --> 00:18:14,320 pointed out in the report. Even 20 years ago, researchers 272 00:18:14,320 --> 00:18:17,200 into malaria and other transmissible diseases 273 00:18:17,240 --> 00:18:19,840 particularly those that affect the the world. 274 00:18:20,120 --> 00:18:24,120 They were complaining that philanthropies, specifically 275 00:18:24,120 --> 00:18:28,360 from Gates, has this toxic effect on research. 276 00:18:28,360 --> 00:18:32,400 It it, it distorts the priorities of research and 277 00:18:32,400 --> 00:18:35,880 replaces them with the agenda of the philanthropist. 278 00:18:35,880 --> 00:18:41,200 So you know and and we know he's got his Gates for example is is 279 00:18:41,200 --> 00:18:46,200 preoccupied with vaccines. Well we well that malaria was 280 00:18:46,200 --> 00:18:50,760 eliminated in much of the West in in in in Europe and in 281 00:18:50,760 --> 00:18:54,960 America in North America and even as far north as the Arctic 282 00:18:54,960 --> 00:19:00,240 Circle not through vaccines. You know we had we we we people 283 00:19:00,240 --> 00:19:04,840 went out with a lot of pesticide and and and where there were 284 00:19:04,840 --> 00:19:07,480 malaria mosquitoes they were wiped out. 285 00:19:08,200 --> 00:19:12,520 Now that that that may or may not have ecological problems but 286 00:19:12,520 --> 00:19:16,600 that was that was the approach we took or or the OR or you know 287 00:19:16,600 --> 00:19:20,600 sort of forward thinking. In fact governments and 288 00:19:20,600 --> 00:19:24,560 regulators took in order to address a very serious problem 289 00:19:25,600 --> 00:19:28,000 that you know that would not be tolerated today. 290 00:19:28,000 --> 00:19:31,000 And and you can be sure that if something of that order did 291 00:19:31,000 --> 00:19:35,200 return today, people would be pretty pretty quickly demanding 292 00:19:35,200 --> 00:19:40,880 that kind of solution. So, so, so that that begins to 293 00:19:40,880 --> 00:19:44,840 shift the, you know, this philanthropy shifts the centre 294 00:19:44,840 --> 00:19:49,360 of gravity of those discussions and and and scientific research 295 00:19:49,360 --> 00:19:52,920 in institutions where strings should not be attached. 296 00:19:52,920 --> 00:19:56,840 We want scientists to pursue what is of interest to 297 00:19:56,840 --> 00:20:00,400 scientists and we want social researchers similarly to be 298 00:20:00,400 --> 00:20:03,120 independent of these ideological agendas. 299 00:20:03,120 --> 00:20:05,320 That doesn't mean that they don't have their own ideological 300 00:20:05,320 --> 00:20:08,840 genders or are not vulnerable to them, but that that the point of 301 00:20:08,840 --> 00:20:12,480 science is to reconcile. Those kind of differences in 302 00:20:12,480 --> 00:20:14,920 society. So yeah so probably probably a 303 00:20:14,920 --> 00:20:16,840 long winded sale. I just think, I just think this 304 00:20:16,840 --> 00:20:20,760 kind of dominance of philanthropy is unhealthy and 305 00:20:20,760 --> 00:20:24,000 and I think we can start there more simply than we can with 306 00:20:24,040 --> 00:20:27,800 with other sort of forms of criticism about wax and and so 307 00:20:27,800 --> 00:20:30,280 on. If philanthropists were really 308 00:20:30,320 --> 00:20:32,760 charitable, they would just give the money to whoever they 309 00:20:32,760 --> 00:20:34,200 suggested, as everybody else does. 310 00:20:34,200 --> 00:20:36,840 They would give the money to whoever they think it's doing a 311 00:20:36,840 --> 00:20:39,880 good job and that would be it. But as you say, conditionalities 312 00:20:39,880 --> 00:20:42,440 are attached and therefore there is an agenda at work here. 313 00:20:42,440 --> 00:20:46,320 But, but if we just look at the funding for scientific research 314 00:20:46,320 --> 00:20:48,280 at the moment, you've mentioned Bill and Melinda Gates 315 00:20:48,280 --> 00:20:51,080 Foundation. But I mean, who else is, is 316 00:20:51,080 --> 00:20:54,840 directly funding this type of research in terms of clean air 317 00:20:54,840 --> 00:20:58,160 and climate policy? Just on those specifics. 318 00:20:58,520 --> 00:21:00,800 Well, well, I mean, the, the point of the research is we we 319 00:21:00,800 --> 00:21:05,400 sort of try and demonstrate 3 tiers to this because we were, 320 00:21:06,720 --> 00:21:09,520 because it was necessary to sort of explain the context of what 321 00:21:09,520 --> 00:21:12,320 we were talking about. So at the top we point out there 322 00:21:12,320 --> 00:21:15,920 is the likes of Bill Gates and he spent an enormous amount of 323 00:21:15,920 --> 00:21:19,880 money over over the course of the, the development of the Bill 324 00:21:19,880 --> 00:21:25,160 and Melinda Gates Foundation. I think it's in the order of $85 325 00:21:25,160 --> 00:21:30,480 billion but I I don't have the the figures in in front of me 326 00:21:31,640 --> 00:21:37,720 and and he is he's kind of I argue that that that's quite 327 00:21:37,720 --> 00:21:42,040 simply buying his way into these intergovernmental agencies and 328 00:21:42,040 --> 00:21:44,000 so on and so forth. That's as I explained then 329 00:21:44,000 --> 00:21:48,120 there's a second tier which is some more the green billionaires 330 00:21:48,800 --> 00:21:52,800 and they're kind of beginning to buy their their way in in the 331 00:21:52,800 --> 00:21:54,920 same way. And the three that we look at 332 00:21:54,920 --> 00:22:01,120 there are Mike Bloomberg, the media news media guy and the 333 00:22:01,280 --> 00:22:04,600 owner of the developer of the Bloomberg Terminal, which sort 334 00:22:04,600 --> 00:22:08,400 of transmits financial information extremely rapidly 335 00:22:08,400 --> 00:22:11,600 around the world. And Christopher Hohn who's the 336 00:22:11,600 --> 00:22:17,280 UK billionaire hedge fund manager and and Jeremy Grantham 337 00:22:17,280 --> 00:22:21,400 who who's most, I mean he's he's a bit of a smaller deal but he 338 00:22:21,400 --> 00:22:25,840 he's interesting because he he funds very expensive units 339 00:22:25,840 --> 00:22:30,480 bearing his name at the London School of Economics and Imperial 340 00:22:30,480 --> 00:22:33,760 College and I think he's given those in the order of about 30 341 00:22:33,760 --> 00:22:38,040 million of some denomination each. 342 00:22:39,200 --> 00:22:47,080 So, and then the the third tier is is just showing how the air 343 00:22:47,080 --> 00:22:52,800 pollution is a proxy battle of the climate war. 344 00:22:52,800 --> 00:22:56,640 So in fact it's just those, you know, money from climate 345 00:22:56,640 --> 00:23:01,000 philanthropists that is is is making its way to the air 346 00:23:01,000 --> 00:23:04,480 pollution campaigns. So you know, and the 2nd tier is 347 00:23:04,600 --> 00:23:09,040 is developing along the same lines as as the first tier and 348 00:23:09,040 --> 00:23:14,280 and the air pollution anxieties are just the annex of the 349 00:23:14,280 --> 00:23:17,080 climate wars, right? Something I wanted to ask you 350 00:23:17,080 --> 00:23:21,360 specifically about here was and if if if misread this in the in 351 00:23:21,360 --> 00:23:24,720 the report then then say so. But if we look at for example 352 00:23:24,720 --> 00:23:28,040 the Foreign Commonwealth Office and the way that they distribute 353 00:23:28,040 --> 00:23:30,720 money around the world, they are off. 354 00:23:30,720 --> 00:23:35,240 They they up to a point we're publishing all spending over 355 00:23:35,240 --> 00:23:38,760 25,000 lbs And they would send money to a particular 356 00:23:38,760 --> 00:23:41,120 organization but then that that organization would then 357 00:23:41,120 --> 00:23:43,040 distribute that money further down the chain. 358 00:23:43,040 --> 00:23:45,520 And So what what effectively was happening was that the money was 359 00:23:45,520 --> 00:23:48,440 being laundered so that you never knew that it was actually 360 00:23:48,440 --> 00:23:51,600 that a particular NGO that was working in the country was 361 00:23:51,600 --> 00:23:54,480 actually being funded by the the Foreign and Commonwealth Office 362 00:23:54,480 --> 00:23:56,440 via these other intermediaries. And. 363 00:23:56,440 --> 00:23:59,680 And I was just wondering whether I think I read that in in the 364 00:23:59,680 --> 00:24:02,320 report that's kind of the same model that's being used in this 365 00:24:02,320 --> 00:24:04,760 case as well? Yeah, yeah, possibly. 366 00:24:05,000 --> 00:24:07,840 We looked less than that than I would have liked to have done. 367 00:24:07,920 --> 00:24:11,840 It needs more more more work. We only have we've got 368 00:24:11,840 --> 00:24:16,560 incredibly limited resources you know not not being funded by 369 00:24:16,560 --> 00:24:18,960 billionaires. So I was you know only able to 370 00:24:18,960 --> 00:24:23,320 take a few weeks to to to do this The the the the dev tracker 371 00:24:23,320 --> 00:24:26,840 info that the the the foreign and Commonwealth Office do put 372 00:24:26,840 --> 00:24:29,840 out is really interesting and it was very I've I've I've seen it 373 00:24:30,880 --> 00:24:37,280 quite a lot sort of leveraging quite a lot of money the the 374 00:24:37,280 --> 00:24:41,320 billionaires money they seem to amplify their money through 375 00:24:41,360 --> 00:24:44,520 through government largesse. Yeah. 376 00:24:44,520 --> 00:24:48,960 So yeah you could find at the foreign Commonwealth Office 377 00:24:50,760 --> 00:24:56,080 donations to the World Wildlife Fund of 30,000,000 lbs and then 378 00:24:56,080 --> 00:24:59,880 and you can find the the you know their their funding. 379 00:25:00,280 --> 00:25:04,840 The most bizarre I found which we we discuss is this 380 00:25:05,280 --> 00:25:09,680 organization called client Earth which which you know uses 381 00:25:09,680 --> 00:25:12,800 judicial reviews takes governments and companies to 382 00:25:12,800 --> 00:25:17,080 courts to try and advance the the the green agenda. 383 00:25:17,960 --> 00:25:22,880 The government's given them 40 sorry 4,000,000 lbs so far that 384 00:25:22,880 --> 00:25:26,600 we've found and and yet they have taken the government to 385 00:25:26,600 --> 00:25:30,080 court 9 times at least nine times on the issue of air 386 00:25:30,080 --> 00:25:32,600 pollution. I think that that that was by 387 00:25:32,640 --> 00:25:37,080 2019 and I think there have been a number of cases since, which 388 00:25:37,080 --> 00:25:42,360 is just absolutely, I mean, who's heard of a, a, a a a a 389 00:25:42,360 --> 00:25:50,440 plaintiff being funded by a defendant in a in a in a lawsuit 390 00:25:50,880 --> 00:25:52,920 that that's kind of crazy, isn't it? 391 00:25:52,920 --> 00:25:57,760 Like kind of I'm, I'm paying you to sue me yet that is what that 392 00:25:57,760 --> 00:25:59,560 is. That's that's the situation. 393 00:25:59,560 --> 00:26:03,680 That's absurdity of of the situation we're in. 394 00:26:03,880 --> 00:26:08,440 Of course, Client Earth is not solely funded by by the 395 00:26:08,440 --> 00:26:11,160 government. It's funded by mostly the the 396 00:26:11,160 --> 00:26:15,840 billionaires we've discussed. And I think even Pink Floyd's 397 00:26:15,840 --> 00:26:20,280 guitarist Dave Gilmore, he he gave them about 16,000,000 quid, 398 00:26:20,280 --> 00:26:22,520 I believe. So that, you know, they're 399 00:26:22,520 --> 00:26:26,600 pretty, they're pretty bloated already with billionaire, green, 400 00:26:26,600 --> 00:26:28,560 billionaire cash. So why the green? 401 00:26:28,560 --> 00:26:30,640 The UK government is funding them. 402 00:26:30,640 --> 00:26:33,000 I have no idea but that but that. 403 00:26:33,000 --> 00:26:38,800 But that perversity in in funding you know these legal 404 00:26:38,800 --> 00:26:43,400 campaigns is reflected in in in a lot of the funding that you 405 00:26:43,400 --> 00:26:47,360 can see from green organization to to green organisations from 406 00:26:47,360 --> 00:26:48,480 the government. So. 407 00:26:48,560 --> 00:26:53,360 So it's it's all I I think to more towards the end of the 408 00:26:53,360 --> 00:26:55,720 report and and it's something I've argued elsewhere as well 409 00:26:56,000 --> 00:27:00,040 there there is something of a compact developing between 410 00:27:00,040 --> 00:27:04,480 business government and civil society And given that civil 411 00:27:04,480 --> 00:27:09,760 society is just a a a you know product you know just a just 412 00:27:09,760 --> 00:27:14,560 bought owned by business. We can say it's a compact 413 00:27:14,560 --> 00:27:17,640 between governments and business or governments and billionaires 414 00:27:17,640 --> 00:27:20,440 if we want to go that that far and that's the danger. 415 00:27:20,440 --> 00:27:25,800 And you you you hear the likes of you know former president of 416 00:27:25,800 --> 00:27:30,560 COP 26 Alok Sharma, MP for reading W You know he was this 417 00:27:30,560 --> 00:27:36,040 sort of slightly pathetic figure given this sort of huge planet 418 00:27:36,040 --> 00:27:40,640 saving role and he gives this fascinating speech to the Green 419 00:27:40,640 --> 00:27:42,760 Alliance. You know his his BLOB outfit in 420 00:27:42,760 --> 00:27:46,400 Westminster quite quite an old one but a BLOB outfit all the 421 00:27:46,400 --> 00:27:52,160 same and and we're in in you know he uses the word civil 422 00:27:52,160 --> 00:27:56,320 society in this sort of presentation about you know what 423 00:27:56,320 --> 00:28:01,000 what what what about COP 26 and the plans he uses the word the 424 00:28:01,000 --> 00:28:04,320 expression of civil society like more than 10 or so times. 425 00:28:04,840 --> 00:28:09,040 He never talks about the public right So the the the the public 426 00:28:09,040 --> 00:28:14,560 just don't feature in in the thinking of these kind of wonks 427 00:28:14,720 --> 00:28:18,520 these technocrats these the the the the people that sort of 428 00:28:18,520 --> 00:28:24,280 inhabit the foreign the the the the foreign and Commonwealth in 429 00:28:24,280 --> 00:28:28,280 development Office. They they just do think of the 430 00:28:28,280 --> 00:28:32,160 whole of the world in in terms of of civil society 431 00:28:32,160 --> 00:28:36,360 organisations and and the great and good that they can do 432 00:28:38,720 --> 00:28:42,600 leaving out any any you know questions about what what 433 00:28:42,600 --> 00:28:47,320 whether the public agrees with what these vast budgets. 434 00:28:47,320 --> 00:28:51,600 This is billions. This is 2% of GDP, which, well 435 00:28:51,600 --> 00:28:55,880 it was, which is what what Cameron wanted to use as the as 436 00:28:55,880 --> 00:28:59,760 the aid budget. And I think that this is the the 437 00:28:59,760 --> 00:29:04,880 trick of this is, you know Cameron will say we want to use 438 00:29:04,880 --> 00:29:13,760 2% of GDP to as as aid and everyone will think of starving 439 00:29:13,760 --> 00:29:16,920 babies in Africa and we're going to go and give them some food. 440 00:29:17,160 --> 00:29:19,640 We might build them some houses, we might restore their 441 00:29:19,640 --> 00:29:21,640 agricultural land so they can use it. 442 00:29:21,920 --> 00:29:31,040 No, it's going to you know, this kind of questionable university 443 00:29:31,040 --> 00:29:37,480 research departments and and civil society organisations and 444 00:29:37,480 --> 00:29:41,560 other intergovernmental agencies and so on to try and further 445 00:29:41,560 --> 00:29:44,480 this green agenda globally. So. 446 00:29:44,480 --> 00:29:50,280 So for example you you you look at you know some some W African 447 00:29:52,400 --> 00:29:59,040 country that may be the putative beneficiary of £5,000,000 and 448 00:29:59,040 --> 00:30:02,200 and then you discover well it's it's it's half of that's going 449 00:30:02,200 --> 00:30:06,040 to the World Resources Institute and half of that's going to 450 00:30:06,280 --> 00:30:13,640 which is just like a stern you know Nicholas Stern outfit with 451 00:30:13,640 --> 00:30:16,360 with Jeremy Grantham's influence and so on and so forth. 452 00:30:17,040 --> 00:30:20,640 And and then you know there might be a few regional NGOs 453 00:30:20,640 --> 00:30:24,880 that take a few of the crumbs but but what the the the point 454 00:30:24,880 --> 00:30:29,240 of this project is to help somewhere like Ethiopia develop 455 00:30:29,240 --> 00:30:33,400 its national nationally determined contributions to the 456 00:30:33,400 --> 00:30:36,680 Paris agreement or under the Paris agreement. 457 00:30:36,960 --> 00:30:40,560 So, so it's this is this looks like a this looks like going to 458 00:30:40,560 --> 00:30:44,600 help hungry Africans. But actually it's just it's just 459 00:30:45,040 --> 00:30:46,640 strengthening the Paris agreement. 460 00:30:46,760 --> 00:30:52,800 It's buying and bribing officials in other countries to 461 00:30:53,360 --> 00:30:59,120 to adhere to the UK government's preferred global political 462 00:30:59,120 --> 00:31:02,520 institutions and and treaties and so on and so forth. 463 00:31:03,160 --> 00:31:06,960 So, so none of that gets discussed and I I've done a few 464 00:31:06,960 --> 00:31:10,560 dives on on on on those funds because I remember there's 465 00:31:10,840 --> 00:31:13,240 probably a distraction from the air pollution discussion. 466 00:31:13,560 --> 00:31:21,000 But you know a few months ago aid to India became a big thing 467 00:31:21,000 --> 00:31:26,080 because India just put a spacecraft on on the moon, which 468 00:31:26,080 --> 00:31:28,440 is which is great. And then people were saying hold 469 00:31:28,480 --> 00:31:33,040 on, we're spending all these these millions on aid in India 470 00:31:33,920 --> 00:31:36,480 and and then if you go and look at what the money is actually 471 00:31:36,480 --> 00:31:40,880 going towards, it's stuff like creating apps to help people. 472 00:31:41,080 --> 00:31:45,080 So so there there was a a few £1,000,000 that went to software 473 00:31:45,080 --> 00:31:50,760 developers in in India to develop apps for people's 474 00:31:50,760 --> 00:31:55,440 smartphones so that they could live sustainable you know they 475 00:31:55,440 --> 00:31:59,640 could have sustainable lifestyle tips or what have you completely 476 00:31:59,640 --> 00:32:05,440 daft and and and they they you know I I think what that's 477 00:32:05,440 --> 00:32:10,960 trying to do is is is to buy a part of Indian society to you 478 00:32:10,960 --> 00:32:17,600 know to to try and change values in in there so that people so 479 00:32:18,040 --> 00:32:22,960 there's you know 2 or 300 people in India now who are sort of who 480 00:32:22,960 --> 00:32:29,000 have got buy in to Western environmental ideological 481 00:32:29,000 --> 00:32:33,480 precepts and that's how this this this stuff is intended to 482 00:32:33,480 --> 00:32:38,760 work and and but but you won't you won't hear that kind of 483 00:32:38,760 --> 00:32:42,680 thing discussed in mainstream discussions about aid They'll 484 00:32:42,720 --> 00:32:46,560 they'll go back you know it's on the BBC they'll be talking about 485 00:32:46,560 --> 00:32:51,640 the devastating floods or famines or what have you that 486 00:32:51,640 --> 00:32:53,680 people elsewhere have to deal with. 487 00:32:53,680 --> 00:32:56,480 So yeah, so it's it's a great big scam. 488 00:32:57,080 --> 00:33:00,520 This is all the same policy being expressed in in many ways. 489 00:33:00,960 --> 00:33:05,640 Now the question I had for you was therefore politicians are 490 00:33:05,640 --> 00:33:09,840 not representing our wishes, they're not representing us in 491 00:33:09,840 --> 00:33:13,200 any way, they're representing policies to us, it seems to me. 492 00:33:13,720 --> 00:33:19,200 And therefore, you know all the at best all we have is a veneer 493 00:33:19,200 --> 00:33:22,800 of democracy here. It's a non democracy here you 494 00:33:22,800 --> 00:33:26,920 can a management style and that and that. 495 00:33:26,920 --> 00:33:32,240 The only contest that really exists between, for example, 496 00:33:32,440 --> 00:33:36,880 Keir Starmer and Rishi Sonak is a is a fake debate about who's 497 00:33:36,880 --> 00:33:41,240 competent to to run the state. It's not about anything deeper 498 00:33:41,240 --> 00:33:44,160 about any of the principles, the organising principles at stake. 499 00:33:44,240 --> 00:33:46,440 You know there aren't. There are none because they're 500 00:33:46,440 --> 00:33:50,800 just too they're just too well, everyone knows their puppets. 501 00:33:50,800 --> 00:33:56,440 Even even people who would vote Labour or or or Tory know that 502 00:33:57,280 --> 00:34:00,280 Rishi Sanak doesn't represent them and and Keir Starmer 503 00:34:00,280 --> 00:34:01,880 doesn't they. They know, they know that. 504 00:34:02,080 --> 00:34:05,520 I think the best thing in the world that could happen would be 505 00:34:05,520 --> 00:34:12,880 if both Tories and Labour and the others got together and said 506 00:34:13,400 --> 00:34:17,320 we won't vote for our party, if you don't vote for your party, 507 00:34:17,480 --> 00:34:20,400 because we both know that they're completely corrupted. 508 00:34:20,639 --> 00:34:24,080 Labour doesn't represent the working class and Conservatives 509 00:34:24,080 --> 00:34:28,800 don't represent the traditional values that that that that party 510 00:34:28,800 --> 00:34:31,360 used to stand for And Liberal Democrats of course are neither 511 00:34:31,360 --> 00:34:34,480 liberal nor democratic and there's a question mark over 512 00:34:34,480 --> 00:34:36,239 whether the Green Party are actually Green. 513 00:34:36,560 --> 00:34:43,600 So so like the the that that being the case they've they've 514 00:34:43,600 --> 00:34:49,560 all sort of arrived at a consensus position on on these 515 00:34:49,560 --> 00:34:53,320 issues and what we show in the report is it's the IT was a 516 00:34:53,760 --> 00:34:59,040 consensus that was engineered by the Green Alliance which is that 517 00:34:59,080 --> 00:35:04,040 I I mentioned them a few moments ago this sort of think tank very 518 00:35:04,120 --> 00:35:08,480 very rooted in western. It's not massive. 519 00:35:08,560 --> 00:35:11,920 It doesn't have you know budgets of 10s of millions or anything 520 00:35:11,920 --> 00:35:13,800 but it. But it has a lot of influence in 521 00:35:14,400 --> 00:35:20,200 in in Westminster and they were behind the instigating the the 522 00:35:20,480 --> 00:35:24,760 the climate assembly that sort of big experiment with against 523 00:35:24,760 --> 00:35:28,720 democracy a few years ago that that that sort of coincided with 524 00:35:28,720 --> 00:35:34,360 the arrival of extinction rebellion and you know that so 525 00:35:34,360 --> 00:35:38,720 they're they they organised this campaign in the in the 2015 526 00:35:38,720 --> 00:35:41,760 general election. I think it's called Show the 527 00:35:41,760 --> 00:35:46,720 Love and and they, they basically lobbied the leaders of 528 00:35:46,720 --> 00:35:50,680 the parties, the three main parties, David Cameron, of 529 00:35:50,680 --> 00:35:54,440 course, Ed Miliband, who was Labour leader at the time, and 530 00:35:54,440 --> 00:35:56,720 Nick Clegg of the Liberal Democrats. 531 00:35:56,960 --> 00:36:01,360 And there's this picture of them all signing this pledge not to 532 00:36:01,360 --> 00:36:07,160 debate climate policy but to all agree to to sort of emphasise 533 00:36:07,400 --> 00:36:13,600 the Paris agreement and and and tackling climate change in their 534 00:36:13,600 --> 00:36:16,320 policy genders. So so you know sort of agreement 535 00:36:16,320 --> 00:36:21,840 to put the green BLOB before the interests of the of the public 536 00:36:21,840 --> 00:36:25,400 and then to allow the public a view and and I think people 537 00:36:25,400 --> 00:36:29,600 would recognise that not just in climate change now but across 538 00:36:29,600 --> 00:36:32,720 the board. It's really difficult for I can 539 00:36:32,720 --> 00:36:36,240 only really go on about climate change but I think people you 540 00:36:36,240 --> 00:36:40,960 know recognise that that that woke has established itself in 541 00:36:40,960 --> 00:36:43,800 in the political establishment at large not necessarily just 542 00:36:43,800 --> 00:36:49,080 the just in Westminster. In along the same lines a racial 543 00:36:49,080 --> 00:36:52,400 ideology, gender, geology, all of the and and and greener 544 00:36:52,400 --> 00:36:54,760 geologies and they're all pretty much a piece and they've all 545 00:36:54,760 --> 00:36:58,640 sort of set themselves in in Westminster in this kind of way 546 00:36:59,720 --> 00:37:04,040 and and and at the expense of us participating in politics and 547 00:37:04,040 --> 00:37:08,360 deciding what principles should should be key to to policy 548 00:37:08,360 --> 00:37:11,280 making. I mean, I don't want to return 549 00:37:11,280 --> 00:37:15,240 to the 1970s, for example, when you had, you know, these these 550 00:37:15,240 --> 00:37:18,760 horrible disputes between labour and, as it were capital or 551 00:37:18,760 --> 00:37:23,480 labour, you know, between we don't want strikes again, right? 552 00:37:23,880 --> 00:37:27,160 But, but but we do want there to be a dialogue of some kind 553 00:37:27,160 --> 00:37:31,120 between between differing perspectives to society. 554 00:37:31,120 --> 00:37:35,320 Otherwise those differences in society are going to fester and 555 00:37:35,320 --> 00:37:38,000 they're going to be dangerous that that those schisms are 556 00:37:38,000 --> 00:37:41,800 going to become dangerous. That's why we have democracy is 557 00:37:41,800 --> 00:37:44,760 because it's the it's the it's the best way of resolving 558 00:37:44,960 --> 00:37:47,200 tensions that develop within society. 559 00:37:47,360 --> 00:37:50,240 But if you've got a whole political establishment which is 560 00:37:50,320 --> 00:37:58,200 very easily bought into these sort of fluffy consensuses that 561 00:37:58,200 --> 00:38:03,320 have a billions of pounds of PR surrounding them, well, well, 562 00:38:03,320 --> 00:38:04,720 well, what? What's going to happen? 563 00:38:04,720 --> 00:38:07,240 And I think it's really important to remember that as 564 00:38:07,240 --> 00:38:11,000 these politicians were trying to build the consensus around 565 00:38:11,000 --> 00:38:15,760 climate change. We were going into a referendum 566 00:38:17,200 --> 00:38:22,880 where where really the the the the the the public had been 567 00:38:22,880 --> 00:38:26,760 denied this this this this view for a really long time. 568 00:38:26,960 --> 00:38:32,640 Have been denied the ability to give a view on on on Britain's 569 00:38:32,640 --> 00:38:35,320 membership of the European Union for for such a long time. 570 00:38:35,560 --> 00:38:38,800 And that had grown and grown and grown until it was a such a 571 00:38:38,800 --> 00:38:42,840 problem for David Cameron that he was forced to give people a 572 00:38:42,920 --> 00:38:45,520 consensus. And then they and then the the 573 00:38:45,640 --> 00:38:49,680 they threw the whole resources of the state behind trying to 574 00:38:49,680 --> 00:38:54,520 sort of nudge people into making the right choice. 575 00:38:54,920 --> 00:39:00,000 So, so, so, like, there couldn't be a more vivid demonstration 576 00:39:00,000 --> 00:39:02,800 about the difference between, you know, the the democratic 577 00:39:02,800 --> 00:39:05,440 deficit. Everyone in the everyone. 578 00:39:05,600 --> 00:39:07,800 Well, not everyone, of course, because it didn't didn't turn 579 00:39:07,800 --> 00:39:11,880 into a it wasn't 100%. But but the the largest, the 580 00:39:11,880 --> 00:39:16,280 largest sort of the, the dominant issue as far as the 581 00:39:16,280 --> 00:39:20,960 public were concerned for the preceding 15 or 20 years was the 582 00:39:20,960 --> 00:39:23,240 question of Britain's membership of the EU. 583 00:39:23,440 --> 00:39:27,240 Whereas the dominant question as far as Westminster was concerned 584 00:39:27,240 --> 00:39:32,480 was what happens if it gets 2° warmer, right. 585 00:39:32,480 --> 00:39:35,120 That's just this. So people were saying we want 586 00:39:35,120 --> 00:39:37,800 democratic control of policy because there's all this stuff 587 00:39:37,800 --> 00:39:40,840 that's going on that's terrible. We've got this growing 588 00:39:40,840 --> 00:39:42,880 immigration problem. We've got this growing house 589 00:39:43,080 --> 00:39:46,840 housing problem and we've got all these economic problems that 590 00:39:46,840 --> 00:39:50,720 haven't been resolved and and and you're all dancing around in 591 00:39:50,720 --> 00:39:53,200 Europe worrying about climate change. 592 00:39:54,000 --> 00:39:58,040 We need to bring we need to bring politics back with to back 593 00:39:58,040 --> 00:40:01,800 to democracy and and and you know the the likes of Ed 594 00:40:01,800 --> 00:40:06,680 Miliband wandering around with their heads in the clouds on on 595 00:40:06,680 --> 00:40:09,960 the global stage just didn't recognise that still don't 596 00:40:09,960 --> 00:40:14,200 recognise that democratic deficit that's something that 597 00:40:14,200 --> 00:40:19,520 needs to be resolved so that that's kind of an important 598 00:40:20,080 --> 00:40:24,800 that's an important. Aspect to understanding how air 599 00:40:24,800 --> 00:40:28,200 pollution fears and crises develop. 600 00:40:28,200 --> 00:40:32,320 This is their context, right? This is it's it's from it's this 601 00:40:32,320 --> 00:40:38,640 democratic deficit that that creates this kind of distorted 602 00:40:38,640 --> 00:40:44,040 view on the other side that that the likes of Ed Miliband and and 603 00:40:44,040 --> 00:40:49,000 other politicians are are victims of and and what what? 604 00:40:49,160 --> 00:40:53,680 So what we really point out in in that part of the report is 605 00:40:53,680 --> 00:40:59,480 that global climate politics it kind of comes to a halt in 2015 606 00:41:00,440 --> 00:41:05,320 with the Paris Agreement and perhaps knocked a bit for six as 607 00:41:05,320 --> 00:41:11,800 well by Britain's Britain's vote, you know the the Leave 608 00:41:11,800 --> 00:41:14,520 vote and also by Donald Trump's election. 609 00:41:14,520 --> 00:41:15,720 Right. These are two kind of 610 00:41:15,720 --> 00:41:20,160 earthquakes that unsettled global you know globalists if 611 00:41:20,160 --> 00:41:21,960 you like in their in their ideologies. 612 00:41:22,480 --> 00:41:27,840 And so there's a recognition that global, the Paris agreement 613 00:41:27,840 --> 00:41:34,200 essentially allows everyone to set their own emissions targets. 614 00:41:34,200 --> 00:41:38,480 Whereas in the past the hope was you could get one-size-fits-all. 615 00:41:38,480 --> 00:41:40,360 Everyone agree it's such an emergency. 616 00:41:40,600 --> 00:41:44,800 We all have to impose this this this one policy now and then and 617 00:41:44,800 --> 00:41:48,240 and and then every country has to deal with it because now it's 618 00:41:48,240 --> 00:41:52,720 it's it's this sort of fake agreement to to so it's an 619 00:41:52,720 --> 00:42:00,080 agreement to disagree basically. And so politics, climate 620 00:42:00,080 --> 00:42:06,560 politics has to shift. It has to go somewhere else and 621 00:42:07,040 --> 00:42:09,720 where it goes is is local. Because if you. 622 00:42:09,720 --> 00:42:12,840 I mean as as we've seen now, there's a lot of fallout about 623 00:42:12,840 --> 00:42:17,240 Rishi Sanak's plans to abolish he. 624 00:42:17,240 --> 00:42:22,880 Well, he he says he'd put back the deadline for abolishing 625 00:42:23,240 --> 00:42:27,320 petrol and diesel cars to 2035 to bring it into alignment with 626 00:42:27,320 --> 00:42:29,560 other countries. This is, this is enormously 627 00:42:29,560 --> 00:42:32,200 politically toxic for national governments. 628 00:42:32,400 --> 00:42:35,720 So, so national. So climate policies don't work 629 00:42:35,720 --> 00:42:38,040 at the global level. They don't really work at the 630 00:42:38,040 --> 00:42:42,160 national level. So, so they've been trying to 631 00:42:42,160 --> 00:42:47,560 find ways to push climate policy making to local politics where 632 00:42:47,560 --> 00:42:49,920 of course turnouts are extremely low. 633 00:42:50,280 --> 00:42:55,120 You know, and I I don't think any London mayor for example, 634 00:42:56,040 --> 00:42:59,640 has ever had a turn out at the election of more than 45%. 635 00:43:00,080 --> 00:43:02,240 And of course they're not. They're they're they're getting 636 00:43:02,480 --> 00:43:07,840 barely more than half of that total vote in the in the second 637 00:43:07,880 --> 00:43:11,800 round. So you know, they can't really 638 00:43:11,800 --> 00:43:15,880 claim that very many Londoners support, support any mayor that 639 00:43:15,880 --> 00:43:19,960 there's ever been. I think what what I think people 640 00:43:19,960 --> 00:43:23,720 have pointed out, more people voted Brexit in London than 641 00:43:23,720 --> 00:43:27,880 voted for Sadiq Khan, which is this remarkable disparity given 642 00:43:27,880 --> 00:43:32,880 the ambition to that that that Khan has to abolish everyone's 643 00:43:32,880 --> 00:43:38,080 cars anyway. So so giving powers as it were 644 00:43:38,080 --> 00:43:43,840 to local authorities essentially to exceed what people would 645 00:43:44,160 --> 00:43:48,880 believe to be local authorities powers is where the the climate 646 00:43:48,880 --> 00:43:58,480 agenda has ended up and and so you know banning cars is is done 647 00:43:58,480 --> 00:44:03,560 on the basis of air pollution at the local level not on the level 648 00:44:03,560 --> 00:44:10,040 not not as climate change at the national or global level and and 649 00:44:10,040 --> 00:44:15,880 you and and and it's done in the context of extremely weak 650 00:44:17,040 --> 00:44:21,760 democratic engagement. You know, I've given an example 651 00:44:21,760 --> 00:44:27,920 of London but in many local elections throughout the UK you 652 00:44:27,920 --> 00:44:31,320 know the the turnouts are as low as the low teens. 653 00:44:32,120 --> 00:44:36,640 So so you know and and that's for you know for for for all 654 00:44:36,640 --> 00:44:39,320 parties. So you could, you know there 655 00:44:39,360 --> 00:44:43,760 there could, there could be a a council that has just, you know, 656 00:44:43,760 --> 00:44:49,120 just the support that a mandate given to it by by single digit 657 00:44:49,120 --> 00:44:52,640 percentage of the local population. 658 00:44:52,800 --> 00:44:57,480 Yet what they want to do is extremely radical even even by 659 00:44:57,480 --> 00:45:05,000 national government standards. So, so they, you know, is a is a 660 00:45:05,000 --> 00:45:08,640 huge change to the way we live our lives and you know, 661 00:45:08,680 --> 00:45:12,800 radically changes the informal social care that goes on. 662 00:45:12,800 --> 00:45:15,800 It radically changes the opportunities that you can give 663 00:45:15,800 --> 00:45:21,520 children and it radically it changes how you get to work and 664 00:45:21,520 --> 00:45:23,600 so on and so forth. But that is now. 665 00:45:23,600 --> 00:45:29,240 That is the competence that's been assumed by local 666 00:45:29,240 --> 00:45:33,280 governments and what what we So what I found fascinating about 667 00:45:33,280 --> 00:45:35,120 this because we were saying well what's that got to do with 668 00:45:35,120 --> 00:45:36,800 billionaires like Mike Bloomberg. 669 00:45:37,080 --> 00:45:44,800 Well Mike Bloomberg was mayor for three terms of New York City 670 00:45:47,400 --> 00:45:52,000 and we I've been talking about turnouts and and the the turn 671 00:45:52,000 --> 00:45:56,200 out in in New York was catastrophically low I think in 672 00:45:56,200 --> 00:46:03,080 I think it's got 25% and in so in in in his third term in 673 00:46:03,080 --> 00:46:10,280 office Bloomberg spent for every single vote that he achieved 674 00:46:10,720 --> 00:46:18,800 $186 which is I mean he he he spent more on a on a you know on 675 00:46:18,800 --> 00:46:26,200 on his mayoral election than all UK political parties spend on on 676 00:46:26,200 --> 00:46:29,680 on an on a general election campaign And for a city the size 677 00:46:29,680 --> 00:46:32,440 of London for a job like city comes I mean it's just an 678 00:46:32,440 --> 00:46:37,000 extraordinary amount of money. So my suggestion is this 679 00:46:37,000 --> 00:46:40,920 indicates that local government, not just in the states, we've 680 00:46:40,920 --> 00:46:44,960 got the same problems here, are completely vulnerable to money 681 00:46:46,240 --> 00:46:48,920 and they're completely vulnerable to to these fake 682 00:46:48,920 --> 00:46:54,400 civil society organisations and and and so being completely open 683 00:46:54,400 --> 00:47:00,880 to to the power of money, that was the obvious place for 684 00:47:00,880 --> 00:47:05,560 climate politics to go from global to to to to local. 685 00:47:06,520 --> 00:47:08,640 And and Mike Bloomberg has seen it. 686 00:47:08,840 --> 00:47:12,040 And if you look at Mike Bloomberg's presence at COP 28, 687 00:47:12,040 --> 00:47:17,840 which is happening now, he's he's running this strand on 688 00:47:17,840 --> 00:47:21,640 local politics. He's running the show, literally 689 00:47:21,640 --> 00:47:27,920 running the show and discussing how they can further buy their 690 00:47:27,920 --> 00:47:32,640 way in to local politics to essentially circumvent democracy 691 00:47:32,920 --> 00:47:37,520 at national and local levels. But in case that sounds gloomy, 692 00:47:38,800 --> 00:47:44,120 because local elections are so have such low turnouts, we have 693 00:47:44,120 --> 00:47:49,040 huge opportunity here to organise independent campaigns 694 00:47:49,720 --> 00:47:52,440 to stand against those candidates that are so 695 00:47:52,440 --> 00:47:56,200 vulnerable to the green BLOB and so so that you know, we we, we 696 00:47:56,200 --> 00:48:00,200 can overturn this and that. That's why you know citizen 697 00:48:00,200 --> 00:48:04,000 journalism and organisations and and campaigns like together 698 00:48:04,480 --> 00:48:08,720 that's so important to to to help that process. 699 00:48:08,720 --> 00:48:12,880 Well, absolutely. And of course, you know, people 700 00:48:12,880 --> 00:48:15,800 will be often pessimistic about local politics and getting 701 00:48:15,800 --> 00:48:18,000 involved in local politics. But it's a great way to get a 702 00:48:18,000 --> 00:48:22,040 message to to an audience without requiring the mainstream 703 00:48:22,040 --> 00:48:23,520 media. And that's really what I want to 704 00:48:23,520 --> 00:48:27,440 ask you about next, because obviously none of this could 705 00:48:27,440 --> 00:48:31,840 happen if the media was doing its job and was actually helping 706 00:48:31,840 --> 00:48:36,520 to hold politics at whatever form of politics it is to 707 00:48:36,520 --> 00:48:40,920 account. And contrary to that, they have 708 00:48:40,920 --> 00:48:44,520 demonstrated in the last 1020 years to be absolutely on board 709 00:48:44,520 --> 00:48:47,840 with with policy rather than holding policy to account. 710 00:48:48,120 --> 00:48:51,520 So I just wondering what you think about mainstream media? 711 00:48:52,280 --> 00:48:54,480 Oh, well, I try not to. I mean, I don't. 712 00:48:54,560 --> 00:48:57,920 I don't. I mean, I could. 713 00:48:57,920 --> 00:48:59,960 I mean, actually, I say I don't. I try not to. 714 00:49:00,920 --> 00:49:06,520 I just, I mean I I I used to just turn it used to be tuned on 715 00:49:06,520 --> 00:49:09,840 to my radio with my my radio used to be radio four in the 716 00:49:09,840 --> 00:49:13,840 kitchen and I just. I mean it's something I listen 717 00:49:13,840 --> 00:49:18,560 to from my you know from my childhood into run into my 30s, 718 00:49:19,840 --> 00:49:24,440 the BBC. And I just don't recognise it 719 00:49:24,440 --> 00:49:27,960 first of all like kind of. I just don't you? 720 00:49:27,960 --> 00:49:30,840 I mean, of course there were always sort of leftoids and 721 00:49:30,880 --> 00:49:34,280 ideologues and what have you at the BBC and that's that. 722 00:49:34,280 --> 00:49:38,040 But that was all added to the richness of the experience, I 723 00:49:38,040 --> 00:49:43,000 think. And I turn it on that and I 724 00:49:43,000 --> 00:49:44,640 just, I just couldn't. I couldn't. 725 00:49:46,080 --> 00:49:48,200 You know, maybe I'm just standing like a grumpy old man. 726 00:49:49,400 --> 00:49:51,320 Yeah, I didn't recognise the Britain that they were 727 00:49:51,360 --> 00:49:53,280 portraying. I didn't recognise any of the 728 00:49:53,280 --> 00:49:57,400 issues that they were they were claiming were sort of dark, 729 00:49:57,760 --> 00:50:00,040 ought to be dominant and the and the same with the. 730 00:50:00,240 --> 00:50:04,240 I mean the the the TVI probably switched off many years earlier, 731 00:50:05,040 --> 00:50:08,640 although I I used to remember thinking Channel 4 was really 732 00:50:08,640 --> 00:50:11,000 amazing. Ben Channel 4 used to be in 733 00:50:11,000 --> 00:50:15,800 terms of mainstream media news Channel 4 News used to be pretty 734 00:50:15,800 --> 00:50:19,200 much top line and if you remember back in 2000 and nine 735 00:50:19,200 --> 00:50:24,000 2010 they exposed the swine flu scam that was trying to be 736 00:50:24,000 --> 00:50:28,240 pushed on on the on the world at that time and and then go 737 00:50:28,240 --> 00:50:32,400 forward 10 years and they were absolutely 100% behind the COVID 738 00:50:33,040 --> 00:50:34,360 narrative as well. So. 739 00:50:34,680 --> 00:50:39,000 So you know they that something changed there but I wasn't even 740 00:50:39,240 --> 00:50:43,280 you know BBC and and and broadcast news that's one thing 741 00:50:43,680 --> 00:50:46,960 but also we've got still got the newspapers and of course the 742 00:50:46,960 --> 00:50:50,000 Guardian in particular have been on the receiving end of quite a 743 00:50:50,000 --> 00:50:52,160 lot of the philanthropic money that you were talking about 744 00:50:52,160 --> 00:50:54,560 earlier in the in this interview so. 745 00:50:54,880 --> 00:50:59,000 So there there is definitely influence coming through from 746 00:50:59,160 --> 00:51:03,280 the same kinds of sources that are influencing academia and 747 00:51:03,280 --> 00:51:05,000 politics. Yeah. 748 00:51:05,360 --> 00:51:07,560 So the other change that happened of course over the 749 00:51:07,560 --> 00:51:10,720 COVID period is they started being directly funded by 750 00:51:10,720 --> 00:51:14,480 government for advertising in a way that they hadn't been up to 751 00:51:14,480 --> 00:51:19,480 that point as well. So, So you know, I I just wonder 752 00:51:19,480 --> 00:51:22,880 how much of that is, is the reason that they are refusing to 753 00:51:22,960 --> 00:51:26,440 actually engage in these topics? Again, the sums are pretty large 754 00:51:26,440 --> 00:51:29,160 and that's only the ones we've been able to to uncover. 755 00:51:30,240 --> 00:51:35,160 A lot of money going from Bill Gates to to the B, the World 756 00:51:35,160 --> 00:51:38,320 Service end of the BBC, not necessarily the licence fee 757 00:51:38,320 --> 00:51:44,160 funded part of the BBC. And I think the BBC. 758 00:51:44,800 --> 00:51:49,800 And there's some very interesting documents around 759 00:51:49,840 --> 00:51:56,760 Again around the around 2016 from from the BB, CS Charter, 760 00:51:56,760 --> 00:52:03,960 Balaam, BBC Media Action, which feeds into a lot of BBC World 761 00:52:03,960 --> 00:52:08,280 Service programming, which in turn gets pushed out variously 762 00:52:08,520 --> 00:52:13,040 across the network. So the BB, CS Fact Checking unit 763 00:52:13,040 --> 00:52:18,640 is funded through this stuff. It's also quite a beneficiary of 764 00:52:18,640 --> 00:52:22,120 quite a generous grant from central government as well, 765 00:52:22,120 --> 00:52:24,040 which has the same preoccupations. 766 00:52:24,400 --> 00:52:32,120 But around 2016 is when all of this panic about misinformation 767 00:52:32,120 --> 00:52:38,360 begins and and you know this the the, the, the fake news stuff. 768 00:52:38,360 --> 00:52:46,400 And I think it's because the BBC you know being the the main 769 00:52:47,240 --> 00:52:50,840 instrument of the political establishment at large I would 770 00:52:50,840 --> 00:52:53,480 say not necessarily the government or the state you know 771 00:52:53,480 --> 00:52:57,080 but the but the the the the political class it's sort of 772 00:52:57,080 --> 00:53:02,240 represents it's most prominent sort of institution is is of 773 00:53:02,240 --> 00:53:07,920 course the BBC and and and it's terrified you know if you if you 774 00:53:07,920 --> 00:53:15,240 read these kind of discussions in the in in the BBC that about 775 00:53:15,600 --> 00:53:18,760 what's just happened. Trump's just been elected 776 00:53:20,720 --> 00:53:25,040 Brexit's just just been voted for and and they're like Oh my 777 00:53:25,040 --> 00:53:28,120 gosh what what have we what have we allowed to happen. 778 00:53:28,440 --> 00:53:31,440 We were supposed to be the centre of gravity of everyone's 779 00:53:31,440 --> 00:53:36,400 opinion in the whole UK we national agenda. 780 00:53:36,720 --> 00:53:40,920 We were supposed to be presenting to people the view of 781 00:53:40,920 --> 00:53:46,520 the world and and they they feel like they failed so they kind of 782 00:53:46,520 --> 00:53:51,320 doubled down and and and I think I think the the other 783 00:53:51,320 --> 00:53:54,480 broadcasters and a lot of the rest of the media were in their 784 00:53:54,480 --> 00:53:57,760 orbit but I think they've doubled down too hard so and I 785 00:53:57,760 --> 00:54:02,800 and I think that that you know so we we might see these quite 786 00:54:02,800 --> 00:54:05,680 large sums going like you know in the order of $50 million 787 00:54:05,680 --> 00:54:09,320 going from Bill Gates to the BBC 12 million I think to the 788 00:54:09,320 --> 00:54:11,640 Guardian and even some to the Telegraph. 789 00:54:11,640 --> 00:54:15,440 But it's not, it's not what it's not going to work now because 790 00:54:15,440 --> 00:54:19,240 that there's a disjuncture now and and too many people have 791 00:54:19,240 --> 00:54:21,120 read it and too many people have seen it. 792 00:54:21,480 --> 00:54:26,080 So now people are just switching off the BBC precisely because 793 00:54:26,080 --> 00:54:31,000 it's just become this bland conformism that doesn't, it 794 00:54:31,000 --> 00:54:35,920 doesn't explore any issue to any depth and you know that as as 795 00:54:35,920 --> 00:54:40,080 much someone say, who could say, oh, you just got this view 796 00:54:40,080 --> 00:54:46,120 that's an outlier that's out of kilter, that that's much more 797 00:54:46,120 --> 00:54:51,920 interesting to people than sort of authorised consensuses about, 798 00:54:52,000 --> 00:54:54,600 you know, the the, the, the, the, the correct scientific 799 00:54:54,600 --> 00:54:57,680 opinion. People, people want to hear 800 00:54:57,680 --> 00:55:02,840 about debates, people want to hear about, you know, 801 00:55:02,840 --> 00:55:06,680 differences of perspective and people, people don't want to be 802 00:55:06,680 --> 00:55:11,600 spoon fed bland piety through their TV so now that's why 803 00:55:11,600 --> 00:55:13,800 they're switching off. But none of the the broadcasters 804 00:55:13,800 --> 00:55:16,720 recognise it. I think Channel 4 just blew 805 00:55:16,720 --> 00:55:23,560 £5,000,000 on I on on sort of reinventing their logo and 806 00:55:24,520 --> 00:55:30,440 making films about how they did it, but then that that just 807 00:55:30,440 --> 00:55:34,120 leaves £5,000,000 they're not spending on the content. 808 00:55:34,120 --> 00:55:36,480 They're all logo and no products, right? 809 00:55:36,480 --> 00:55:39,720 But they're not they're not interesting enough for logo to 810 00:55:39,720 --> 00:55:42,120 stick on people's T-shirts or something. 811 00:55:42,120 --> 00:55:44,840 So. So, you know, they're they're, 812 00:55:44,840 --> 00:55:49,600 they've become in in this kind of way preoccupied with 813 00:55:49,600 --> 00:55:55,280 themselves as brands and sort of their relationship to society at 814 00:55:55,280 --> 00:55:58,720 the expense of actually serving any good in society. 815 00:55:58,960 --> 00:56:01,240 So I think people, people have, people have turned off. 816 00:56:01,480 --> 00:56:04,640 So again, I wouldn't be too bleak about the dominance of 817 00:56:04,640 --> 00:56:07,760 mainstream media because this I know, you know, apart from 818 00:56:07,760 --> 00:56:10,240 anything else, we're here now, we're doing this now. 819 00:56:10,240 --> 00:56:14,280 This probably wasn't possible to the extent that there it is now, 820 00:56:14,960 --> 00:56:19,800 before COVID and before Climate, before before Net zero and 821 00:56:19,800 --> 00:56:23,880 before Wokeness. So every every kind of trench 822 00:56:23,880 --> 00:56:31,320 that the the, the, the, that that establishment position digs 823 00:56:31,320 --> 00:56:35,400 as its own kind of defences undermines its own foundations. 824 00:56:35,920 --> 00:56:39,400 People don't want people want stuff like this and the more 825 00:56:39,400 --> 00:56:43,480 people that can sort of find it the more the more they will 826 00:56:43,480 --> 00:56:47,160 watch And the more that the BBC and Channel 4 and the mainstream 827 00:56:47,160 --> 00:56:50,480 newspapers are defensive about it. 828 00:56:50,720 --> 00:56:53,160 The more the more they will drive people away. 829 00:56:53,160 --> 00:56:58,480 That that that's that's been the the tendency so long, long may 830 00:56:58,480 --> 00:57:00,200 they continue. But that that is also why 831 00:57:00,200 --> 00:57:03,720 they're getting very aggressive about online harms and 832 00:57:03,960 --> 00:57:07,000 misinformation and other stuff. So we have to be careful. 833 00:57:07,000 --> 00:57:08,840 It's not. It's not a done deal. 834 00:57:09,200 --> 00:57:12,840 There's a lot more they could do to to to prevent freedom of 835 00:57:12,840 --> 00:57:15,880 expression and that they are planning to do and we've got, 836 00:57:15,880 --> 00:57:19,040 we've got to be careful to it. But I I think we should be again 837 00:57:19,040 --> 00:57:22,240 optimistic about mainstream media's demise. 838 00:57:22,240 --> 00:57:25,200 I think it will. It is imminent and it will be a 839 00:57:25,200 --> 00:57:27,360 good thing. I can't leave without talking 840 00:57:27,360 --> 00:57:32,000 about air quality itself and and a bit I mean one of the points 841 00:57:32,000 --> 00:57:34,480 that's made in the paper is that of course the the the air 842 00:57:34,480 --> 00:57:39,200 quality debate isn't based on science and and so I mean 843 00:57:40,000 --> 00:57:44,040 whenever Sadiq Khan is is claiming that he needs an ultra 844 00:57:44,040 --> 00:57:48,080 low emission zone because air quality is is bad in in London 845 00:57:48,080 --> 00:57:50,800 and 4000 people are dying a year and so on. 846 00:57:51,240 --> 00:57:54,160 I mean what what? What is the scientific evidence 847 00:57:54,200 --> 00:57:57,080 on his correctness or incorrectness on that? 848 00:57:57,840 --> 00:58:02,040 There is no science of it, first of all, right, so there isn't 849 00:58:02,040 --> 00:58:04,920 there. There was an attempt to estimate 850 00:58:05,840 --> 00:58:12,720 the mortality risk of air pollution exposure and and that 851 00:58:13,120 --> 00:58:17,760 is based on a broader number of studies and it's quite simple. 852 00:58:18,480 --> 00:58:23,040 You you you sort of try to estimate a population's level of 853 00:58:23,040 --> 00:58:27,880 exposure and then you look at how long they're living and then 854 00:58:27,880 --> 00:58:32,440 you you try to to to work out what the influence of of those 855 00:58:32,440 --> 00:58:36,560 air pollutants specifically PM 2.5 which is the smallest 856 00:58:37,440 --> 00:58:42,360 particles of soot and the such like in in air and stuff like 857 00:58:42,360 --> 00:58:46,320 nitrogen, the the noxes and soxes nitrogen dioxides and 858 00:58:46,520 --> 00:58:49,120 nitrogen oxides and sulfur oxides. 859 00:58:49,120 --> 00:58:55,840 So they try to build these statistical models of of of of 860 00:58:55,840 --> 00:59:00,480 that exposure risk and now as use they may well be useful in 861 00:59:00,480 --> 00:59:05,920 certain contexts and and I'm not against like you know I think 862 00:59:05,920 --> 00:59:11,840 it's probably better that we we, we we don't have open coal fires 863 00:59:11,920 --> 00:59:17,560 in in a place like London. I think that you know so but I 864 00:59:17,560 --> 00:59:20,200 don't I don't I, I we're talking about something categorically 865 00:59:20,200 --> 00:59:23,360 different when we're now when we're talking about banning 866 00:59:23,360 --> 00:59:25,880 anything we're essentially talking about banning combustion 867 00:59:25,880 --> 00:59:32,360 full stop of any form. So the the, the the the the 868 00:59:32,720 --> 00:59:37,600 government had convened in the 2000s or you know sort of met 869 00:59:38,120 --> 00:59:43,800 occasionally a panel of experts called committee on the medical 870 00:59:43,800 --> 00:59:48,360 effects of air pollutants. It's called Comia and and that 871 00:59:48,360 --> 00:59:50,800 sort of brought these sort of researchers and scientists 872 00:59:50,800 --> 00:59:54,920 together with a couple of lay people interestingly enough 873 00:59:54,920 --> 00:59:58,960 again from 1A representative from the Green Alliance that 874 00:59:58,960 --> 01:00:03,160 BLOB organization I've discussed quite a bit and they discuss how 875 01:00:03,160 --> 01:00:06,840 what what what how can we work out what what what is the 876 01:00:06,840 --> 01:00:11,680 mortality risk and they they they try every few years to sort 877 01:00:11,680 --> 01:00:16,400 of synthesize the science that that that's available. 878 01:00:17,320 --> 01:00:22,400 So in the the, the, the one of them, the sort of key events 879 01:00:22,400 --> 01:00:27,920 that is a report they produced in 2018 where sort of more more 880 01:00:27,920 --> 01:00:32,560 definitive effort to estimate mortality risk of of of all the 881 01:00:32,560 --> 01:00:37,840 potents that people are exposed to and they and they produce 882 01:00:37,840 --> 01:00:40,560 this model. But but a lot of the scientists 883 01:00:40,560 --> 01:00:43,160 on the panel or a number of the scientists on the panel, it's 884 01:00:43,160 --> 01:00:48,120 not a huge panel. They disagree and they say this 885 01:00:48,120 --> 01:00:52,800 is not a Safeway of informing policy. 886 01:00:53,680 --> 01:00:58,920 There is no mortality risk associated with air pollution 887 01:00:58,920 --> 01:01:03,400 exposure. And we know that because people 888 01:01:03,400 --> 01:01:08,160 are living longer lives, right. So you know, it's misleading to 889 01:01:08,160 --> 01:01:12,800 say that someone dies the cause of air pollute exposure to air 890 01:01:12,800 --> 01:01:15,560 pollution. Now it might be that you live 891 01:01:15,560 --> 01:01:20,080 slightly longer if you're exposed to slightly or much less 892 01:01:20,360 --> 01:01:24,800 air pollution, but this is, this is these these effects are 893 01:01:24,800 --> 01:01:29,200 extremely weak statistically. So as as we point out in the 894 01:01:29,200 --> 01:01:32,960 earlier report, life expectancy has been growing through most of 895 01:01:32,960 --> 01:01:36,280 the 20th century and into the 21st century pretty linear 896 01:01:36,280 --> 01:01:42,360 linearly at a rate of 72 days per person per year. 897 01:01:42,800 --> 01:01:46,680 So you know, you're like, this is life expectancy increasing at 898 01:01:46,680 --> 01:01:49,960 this quite phenomenal rate, certainly a historically 899 01:01:49,960 --> 01:01:54,600 unprecedented development. So people were where they were 900 01:01:54,720 --> 01:01:58,240 sort of at the middle of the last century, dying towards the 901 01:01:58,240 --> 01:02:00,120 end of their 60s. Now they're living into their 902 01:02:00,120 --> 01:02:03,440 80s as an average as an expected norm. 903 01:02:04,280 --> 01:02:10,320 So this and that's that's great that we we we want this but the 904 01:02:10,440 --> 01:02:14,160 the, the so the worst you can say about exposure to air 905 01:02:14,160 --> 01:02:19,840 pollution according to these models is that that 72 days per 906 01:02:19,840 --> 01:02:26,680 year increase is slowed down by 64 or so hours a year, right. 907 01:02:26,680 --> 01:02:31,480 So you essentially let's say you gain 72 days a year through 908 01:02:31,480 --> 01:02:35,000 whatever is driving normal material progress that that kind 909 01:02:35,000 --> 01:02:40,440 of stuff and then you lose 60. So so 100 steps forward, one 910 01:02:40,440 --> 01:02:45,080 steps back, right that that's how to think of this and so so 911 01:02:45,080 --> 01:02:48,720 it's and that's why it's misleading to say it causes 912 01:02:48,720 --> 01:02:53,760 death or it causes premature death because it doesn't it just 913 01:02:53,760 --> 01:02:58,160 slightly air pollution exposure slightly slows the rate of 914 01:02:58,160 --> 01:03:04,480 increase of life expectancy. So so so this debate happens 915 01:03:04,480 --> 01:03:08,560 within Commie app and and and and a couple of the scientists 916 01:03:08,560 --> 01:03:11,360 say we're not putting our name to this because this is this is 917 01:03:11,360 --> 01:03:14,160 misleading and it's going to distort the public's 918 01:03:14,160 --> 01:03:19,000 understanding of of of air pollution and and they say this 919 01:03:19,000 --> 01:03:24,240 in 2018 and and Sadiq Khan has proven them right because Sadiq 920 01:03:24,240 --> 01:03:26,920 Khan. Sadiq Khan you know and I hate 921 01:03:27,120 --> 01:03:33,040 you know we've got a worse repeat the point I'm not 922 01:03:33,040 --> 01:03:36,800 claiming A denying A denier's position for example that I 923 01:03:36,800 --> 01:03:40,080 might be some people might sort of characterise my views on 924 01:03:40,080 --> 01:03:43,840 climate change. I'm stating the science here 925 01:03:43,840 --> 01:03:46,800 literally. The published government 926 01:03:46,840 --> 01:03:53,840 official science, it's saying do not use mortality as a statement 927 01:03:53,880 --> 01:03:56,520 of of of the risk of air pollution. 928 01:03:58,200 --> 01:04:02,520 But but they, you know the likes of Sadiq Khan, just just just 929 01:04:04,640 --> 01:04:08,760 just ignore that that warning, that advice from science itself 930 01:04:09,040 --> 01:04:12,240 and I would say scientific institutions, research 931 01:04:12,240 --> 01:04:16,680 organisations such as those that are based at Imperial College 932 01:04:17,160 --> 01:04:21,320 are complicit. And even the chair of Commi App 933 01:04:21,320 --> 01:04:28,040 itself has been complicit in allowing, as it were, Sadiq Khan 934 01:04:28,040 --> 01:04:32,360 to get away with that. And and and I'm I'm not 935 01:04:32,360 --> 01:04:35,120 suggesting that that's just because they've been bought, 936 01:04:35,360 --> 01:04:39,360 although we can see extremely large amounts of money flowing 937 01:04:39,360 --> 01:04:46,800 between City Hall in London, the mayor's office and the NGOs and 938 01:04:46,800 --> 01:04:51,720 and philanthropists involved with air pollution campaigning. 939 01:04:52,480 --> 01:04:56,480 But but you know might the the the whole thing might be more 940 01:04:57,920 --> 01:05:02,640 complex than just about funding but there's definitely ideology 941 01:05:02,640 --> 01:05:10,400 interfering with institutional sciences contributions to our 942 01:05:10,400 --> 01:05:15,400 understanding. And even after having produced 943 01:05:15,800 --> 01:05:22,840 such a clear statement as as as as Comiak did, it's chair is 944 01:05:22,840 --> 01:05:27,320 going around supporting the mayor in his very alarmist 945 01:05:28,480 --> 01:05:33,400 propagandist kind of interventions. 946 01:05:34,360 --> 01:05:38,080 You know, trying to you know this this policy making so, so 947 01:05:38,080 --> 01:05:41,680 this and that and that's just to wrap that up. 948 01:05:41,680 --> 01:05:46,200 I guess that's how we can know that climate change is BS as 949 01:05:46,200 --> 01:05:53,520 well because air pollution as I've said before is a microcosm 950 01:05:53,600 --> 01:05:56,800 is a proxy battle of the climate debate. 951 01:05:57,320 --> 01:06:01,520 And and if we can see such liberties being taken by 952 01:06:01,520 --> 01:06:08,360 institutional science and by scientists at in this, in this 953 01:06:08,360 --> 01:06:11,880 in this field in the field of air pollution, we can definitely 954 01:06:11,880 --> 01:06:16,120 see that replicated throughout the other debates about about 955 01:06:16,320 --> 01:06:18,960 about climate change. So that's that's what we try and 956 01:06:18,960 --> 01:06:22,160 do in the report. We try and say air pollution is 957 01:06:22,160 --> 01:06:27,160 the microcosm of of the the broader climate and green agenda 958 01:06:27,840 --> 01:06:30,320 and we and we can see these same things happening. 959 01:06:30,720 --> 01:06:33,280 Brilliant, Ben. We have to leave it there for 960 01:06:33,280 --> 01:06:35,080 today. I hope we can do this again in 961 01:06:35,080 --> 01:06:38,200 the future. In the meantime, how do people 962 01:06:38,440 --> 01:06:41,640 get a copy of the report and how do they see your other work? 963 01:06:42,160 --> 01:06:45,760 Yeah, you can get the report at the Together Association 964 01:06:45,760 --> 01:06:48,560 website. If you'll forgive me if I've 965 01:06:48,560 --> 01:06:50,560 forgotten the URL, but it's quite easy to find. 966 01:06:50,760 --> 01:06:53,160 You can find it on Twitter as well We're we're tweeting it 967 01:06:53,400 --> 01:07:00,240 every day at the moment. So so the you can also find me 968 01:07:00,280 --> 01:07:03,520 on Twitter. Climate debate Sorry Climate 969 01:07:03,520 --> 01:07:11,760 resistance Clim #8 resistance. My website isclimatedebate.co.uk 970 01:07:13,280 --> 01:07:17,760 Ross Got YouTube channel but all those are linked to on on 971 01:07:17,760 --> 01:07:21,480 Twitter and on the website. But yeah, should be should be 972 01:07:21,480 --> 01:07:25,400 easy to find the report either by my name or by the together 973 01:07:25,840 --> 01:07:28,960 association with the word report if you will do a web search. 974 01:07:29,680 --> 01:07:31,000 Brilliant. Thank you very much. 975 01:07:31,200 --> 01:07:33,120 Ben Pyle, thank you for joining me today. 976 01:07:33,120 --> 01:07:36,600 And as I say, hopefully we will see you in the not too distant 977 01:07:36,600 --> 01:07:37,680 future. Thank you very much. 978 01:07:38,120 --> 01:07:38,960 Bye, bye for now.